Denim Skirt, Because I can't stop starting new projects!

Over the past few years, as our concert-going has picked up, I have missed having a dark denim skirt in my collection as an option. Sometime in February, as I thought about what I wanted to wear to our next show (Anti-Flag and Flogging Molly) the stack of old jeans in my studio started calling to me.  I started in on this skirt a week before the show.

Cutting, pinning, dyeing, stitching and more pinning and stitching.  I have piles of beads all over my sewing table (a few too many projects going) and I didn't feel like relocating them to get to my sewing machine so I decided to finger-press and hand stitch this skirt. 

I caught most of it on hyper-lapse video.  The seam ripping and stitching at least. I compiled it into the following video with a rambling voice-over:

(I do not pretend to be good at video or editing, 

I figure the more I make myself do it, hopefully I'll get a little better)

I also threw it in a black dye bath with over double black dye I think that it should need and it still only came out dark blue. I'm not sure if maybe the fiber content isn't 100% cotton (as the label says) or if I just need to keep dyeing. There was no time, and, lets face it, I wanted to do some black sashiko stitching on it before it's first concert.

2 nights before the concert my brain wouldn't let me go back to sleep at 4am.  I had been looking at a lot of denim skirts and patches were on my brain.  I added a patch added at about 5:30am, I hated it, asked Bryan when he thought, then I cut the patch out around the spiral stitching that afternoon...I felt really off from not sleeping and for whatever reason, not being able to nap, so I just stitched. I'm going to continue to do various types of black stitching on this skirt so that it'll get darker from the embroidery floss even if I can't get the denim to fully dye black. Thus I have created another personal piece that will probably never quite be done, it'll morph and be a little different every time I wear it. Which is pretty fun. 

I have been getting into a different head space about hand stitching. It's not "too slow" its meditative and controlled. I no longer look at the time that it takes and, just like beads, one stitch at a time...one bead at a time...all of the work that I create is slow and builds up over time to become something wonderful. Everything good takes time and patience. I'm pretty over how fast everything is moving. The days and projects have been flying by despite my attempt to go slower.  How the heck did I finish a hand-stitched skirt in a week in the mornings and my lunch breaks?? It just...happened...and I enjoyed every stitch. 

standard concert dirty bathroom mirror selfie

What a great show!  It was worth being tired.

It turns out I had forgotten how to dye black and I needed to move my bucket dyeing to stove-top.  I need black for my next weaving so figuring out where I flubbed up became important...and I got it. Now I can put it in the closet for the next show or whenever I feel like stitching black again. 

I think it's going to go with most of my wardrobe..

Weaving Yardage....possibly never again....?

I have been trying to finish off some projects that are long-started and neglected for one reason or another.  This feels good to have it off my loom and Delilah folded up for a little bit to make room to finish other projects that are growing issues in my mind.

Back in August of 2013 I was taking a class with Mary Sue Fenner making a jacket out of our handwoven.  I'm not very good at prepping for classes (as I certainly discovered here!). I had decided maybe two months before to use up my hand-dyed rayon leftover from college and lord knows what other projects to weave yardage for this class.  Clearly, I did not get this fabric woven in time and then it sat and I picked at it. Over a year later I got this darn yardage off my loom.

I am constantly inspired by other weavers who weave beautiful fabric and then make it into wonderful clothing pieces.  Daryl Lancaster has been a source of inspiration since she spoke with the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild a number of years ago and she has been to the Michigan League of Handweavers Conference & Workshops....maybe this is ready to go for one of her workshops?  Or I'll find the perfect Vogue Pattern and be ready to go? Also, a Kalamazoo weaver Helen Duffy of Axtell Creek Designs is always making something cool. Bonnie Kay and Ellen Wilson of the Ann Arbor Fiberarts Guild create amazing pieces with their handwoven....just to name a few I can think of this morning....

This fabric is hand-dyed rayon woven in a weave pattern that involves breaks or recesses in the cloth, which is giving it's springy feel. (page 164, figure 757 in A Handbook of Weaves)  I wanted to use all 6 shafts on my loom...because I can. Its set is at 20 ends per inch.  

I now know that I could do this, I have the knowledge to go forth and do so, but all I've been thinking about is my next double weave pick-up wall hanging and the tapestry that I started in the Porkies.  This may not be for me, not right now anyway.

Confession:  I hated the idea of hand-washing 7.5 yards of fabric and I have a new washer that has a hand-wash setting.  I stitched the edges of this fabric down like Mary Sue had taught us (since I don't own a serger), crossed my fingers and threw it in the machine.  I decided not to put it on spin, so it came out sopping wet and I hung it.  I mean, if I do make this into clothing, I will be putting it in the machine, so it better hold up, right?

It held up, whew! After washing it, I love this fabric even more....maybe I will weave yardage again one day.  The light soft give to this fabric is already begging to be made into something. I'm already perusing the Vogue patterns I own and some online.

Older references to this yardage: Weaving it in January  &  a Video of this being woven

Dyeing to Start my Next Doubleweave Pick-Up

I think maybe my dye process is a little different than most.  I'm starting in on another large double weave pick up piece.  I'm well-into finishing the cartoon in Photoshop for it. I wound off a bunch of skeins of rayon and started rolling colors around in my head.

I think initially I was going to have a black/grey side of this piece, but I'm really sick of weaving and dyeing black since it's the weft color of the yardage that I'm finishing weaving off my loom.  So I decided on a Green for one warp and Blue for the other warp.  I started dyeing.

I didn't have a particular green or blue in mind.  I really like to take a step back from any particular shade and see what turns out.  If I'm not happy with the first batch, I keep dyeing.  Darker colors are usually what I lean towards anyway so adding color is never an issue for me.

I stopped earlier than I thought on the green, it is a bright leaf-color with some turquoise-blue properties that I'm really enjoying.  I just finished the blue yesterday.  I've been really drawn to dark teal lately so I pushed more towards that colorway.

I'm happy with the blue today so I will begin the ball-winding once I get a PowerPoint finished!  

I'm so excited, I already set up the living room.

 And if you want to see what it feels like to wind a ton of balls of yarn, you should check out Rebecca's video:

(This makes me want to make fiber-videos...maybe once I'm back from Japan...)

AND last night, despite being rather tired, we did a window push.  I needed tools out of one of the upstairs rooms so I could safely pack.  We finished the windows in my office and even got the curtains up.  I'm very pleased this morning.